To Dance on the Brink of Daylight
by UConn Fan
Summary: There's always truth, even if you thought it was something you'd never see. (SV)
1. Default Chapter

Title: To Dance on the Brink of Daylight  
  
Author: UConnFan (Michele)  
  
E-Mail: LoveUConnBasketball@yahoo.com  
  
Story Summary: There's always truth, even if it's something you never thought you'd see.   
  
Authors Note: SD-1 is down for the moment, and SD-3 doesn't like me . . . So I guess I'm posting here for awhile. Here's part one and then part two.   
  
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Ten days after they were mysteriously saved from a firing squad in North Korea, Michael Vaughn still wasn't sure if he'd wanted his impromptu confessions to change everything or nothing. Worse yet, nearly two weeks after they arrived back from their near certain death, he still couldn't tell what, if anything, had changed.  
  
Sydney wouldn't let him say it, and now he didn't know whether to be grateful or annoyed. She'd known - of course she'd known. Truth be told, she'd probably known since he'd helped her escape the country when Lauren found out that she had spent two years as an assassin. Nothing had changed, not when it came to how he felt - there would never be anyone else, not in the way they'd been together, and there never would be.   
  
Yet he was still married to Lauren. That, for the time being, couldn't be changed. The vows were sacred, even if his sanity had been questionable at the time. Rumors had swirled around the CIA after his return that Jack Bristow clearly thought he and his entire marriage was irrational. There were days when he couldn't help but wonder if Jack was on to something.  
  
Since their return, the hours seemed tediously long and that day was no exception. He continued his dance with Sydney, the one that he thought they would have perfected after nearly five months. She'd seen him after they returned from North Korea, how he'd gone straight to Lauren, holding her in his arms in the middle of the workplace. Most people would have just thought it was unprofessional and looked away in disgust or annoyance; to Sydney, it must have left her questioning every word and action that had passed between them in their holding cell. Vaughn hated leaving her in limbo, but hated even more that he knew he couldn't yet do anything to fix it.  
  
The apartment was dark, his shadow long as he passed by the window, flipping absently through the slew of mail they received. After he decided there was nothing there that couldn't wait until after he ate dinner and watched the Kings game, Vaughn tossed it onto the sofa. As his mind raced through the events of the day, he began to undo his tie, stepping into the bedroom.   
  
"Stop," a commanding voice called him mere seconds before he flipped on the light switch.   
  
Confused, Vaughn looked up, his blood growing cold at the sight in front of him. Lauren was not on a plane to have a meeting with Sloane, as she'd claimed she was going five hours ago when she said goodbye to him at work. Instead she stood in the middle of their bedroom, dressed in a leather outfit that he'd never seen before. If it wasn't for the gun she held in her hand, steadily pointed at him, Vaughn would have wondered if this was some new type of role-play.  
  
"Lauren, what -"  
  
"Shut up Michael. Shut up! I'm not doing this anymore. Quite frankly I'm sick of it. I'm tired of how our life has started revolving around Sydney Bristow - you have no idea how long I've had to put up with her name and her life, having to drop everything because of *her*! I'm not going to do it anymore."  
  
"What are you talking about -"  
  
"Shut up!" she screeched, her eyes shutting tight with disgust. Vaughn glanced down to her finger, watching it shake slightly against the trigger, and struggled to remember what they'd taught him in the farm about field training. "You have two options Michael," she opened her eyes and met him, not an ounce of uncertainty pr fear evident on her face or in her posture. That only left him terrified. "This is going to end tonight Michael, one way or another. Either you'll listen to me and then help me, or we can end this right here. I'll clean up and then be on my way, I can do it without your assistance, although it would be easier on both of us if we went with the first option."  
  
Only slightly dazed, he reached to lay his hand on their bedroom dresser, struggling to steady himself. "I'm listening."  
  
The side of Lauren's mouth twitched, slowly turning into a smirk, "it's amusing, really it is. You and I aren't that different Michael, not when you see things the way I do, not when you're able to look at the whole picture. We married each other for nearly the exact same reason, which I know is something neither one of us likes to think about, never mind admit to each other or likely even ourselves."  
  
"I love you Lauren," he choked out. The words were only a hollow truth, barren of the intimacy and devotion, the passion, which a man should feel for his wife. She'd saved him from himself, he loved her and would be forever indebted to her for that.  
  
"That's not why we got married Michael. That was only something we conveniently convinced ourselves, because at the end of the day we both like to think we're good people. No, you married me to help find out more about Sydney. Which is just as well Michael, because I married you to find out more about Julian."  
  
"Julian?" Vaughn's features twisted painfully.   
  
"Yes," her features softened only momentarily. "You took him. Just tossed him in jail and for two years didn't even consider what he might have left. A life, despite his crimes he had a life and people who loved him and would do anything to help him and get him out -"  
  
"Sark," he realized. "This was planned from the beginning. Sloane's pardon . . . When Sark escaped, you weren't surprised, and you had it planned from the very beginning."  
  
"Brokering Sloane's pardon was just a bonus, something my employers wanted from me. My objection had always been to see that Julian was promptly released."   
  
"Your Covenant."   
  
"Don't pretend to be surprised Michael. You married me because I was Covenant, you planned it, you and Kendall, Dixon and Weiss - I wouldn't be surprised if even Jack Bristow was involved. You shouldn't be surprised that we had a counter strategy. I wouldn't have entered into this if it wouldn't have been beneficial for us as well."  
  
"Why did you do it? Your family . . . Your family has had generations in Congress and public service on both sides of your family Lauren, what happened to make you disloyal? Don't tell me it was money either, your family has plenty of that," he recalled. "What about your father? Senator Reed?"  
  
"Senator Reed *is* Lauren Reed's father," Lauren confirmed. "Unfortunately, there's not a lot the Senator doesn't want people to know about his daughter. She was beautiful, you should have seen her Michael, beautiful and bright and ambitious. Boarding schools from the time she was seven though, underneath all of that was a lot of anger. She was accepted to Oxford and her free-running spirit got away from her. It was sad to see it; she became quite a loose cannon. My employers found her over two years ago, roaming the red light district in Amsterdam. Selling her body to pay for her habits. While her father was plugging family values and making healthcare more difficult for the impoverished, his daughter was selling her body and dying. I was there when she died a few days later."  
  
"The Covenant went to the Senator with this information."   
  
"Yes, it seems the Senator owed our organization some favors after that. The Senator's been working in politics for nearly thirty five years, he wasn't eager for us to come forward with the information we had, never mind leak it to his political rivals. When we explained the situation, he and his wife were more than eager to help - after all, Lauren had been their only daughter. Lauren's body was the one placed in the apartment, the body they injected the dental pulp into to insure that the remains were identified as Sydney's. Shortly after that I arrived in Los Angeles, after having spent several weeks in Virginia letting the Reed's get to know their new daughter."  
  
Vaughn looked at the woman in front of him, the tale she'd just weaved so far expanded than anything he'd ever thought he'd get involved in. Even at the time, leaving the CIA, getting involved with her, had not been the best idea but it had seemed logical, help them get answers faster. He hadn't allowed himself to believe she was really dead, and his superiors had wanted answers about the newly emerging terror cell. The deal he'd made didn't leave him exuberantly proud of his morals, but he allowed himself to believe it was balanced out by the pure emotions he had towards Sydney.  
  
"If the real Lauren Reed is dead, who are you?"  
  
"I think you should appreciate the irony of this Michael. Most people who really know me call me Julia Thorne." 


	2. Chapter 2

Title: To Dance on the Brink of Daylight  
  
Author: UConnFan (Michele)  
  
E-Mail: LoveUConnBasketball@yahoo.com  
  
Story Summary: There's always truth, even if it's something you never thought you'd see.   
  
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Dixon had hated invading Michael Vaughn's new sanctuary, his classroom at the community college, but that's just what he did when he strode purposely into the room. The students exited around him as Vaughn packed up his briefcase, unaware of his visitor. Nine months had passed since they thought Sydney Bristow had died, and the task ahead of Marcus Dixon was one he was bittersweet about at best.  
  
"Vaughn," he spoke. Vaughn looked up, clearly surprised to see his former co-worker before he went back to packing up his belongings. He'd left the agency three weeks after Sydney's death, his resignation on Devlin's desk, but his belongings had been gone for nearly as long as she had been. He was out of the country, no one eve really knew where he went, not even a concerned Mrs. Vaughn, but then he was back. Establishing his new, post- Sydney Bristow life, taking a job teaching French at the community college. Given what Sydney had wanted to do with her life, it left little to the imagination to wonder why he'd taken that job.  
  
"How'd you find me?"  
  
"Agent Weiss," Dixon explained. "I came here for a reason -"  
  
"I'm not going back," he quickly looked up. "Weiss has been trying to convince me since I came back . . . I like my job. It has good hours, I get decent pay, and it's safe. I can't just go back in there, work day after day without her there. She was my job for two years, taking care of her and being her partner . . . Nothing you offer me can make me go back."  
  
"Kendall asked me to come see you actually. We'd hoped to see you when you were in to talk to the NSC, but you were in and out before we could speak to you."  
  
"Speak to me about what?"  
  
Dixon glanced around the classroom and back at the man before him. The bags were still heavy under his eyes, and it was obvious he needed to shave. Perhaps he'd convinced himself, convinced his closest friends and family that he'd moved on, but whatever he was doing, Dixon was certain it didn't qualify as living. "Is there somewhere we can talk?"  
  
It was February, a cold winter by Los Angeles terms, and the seats by the college's baseball field were deserted, sans the two men, both silently reeling from losing the women in their lives. Vaughn held his travel mug in his hands, his soft-sided briefcase at his feet as Dixon sat besides him, taking a moment to reflect on the job at hand. He was the one to convince Kendall that Vaughn had to know, the man who'd argued that keeping him out of the loop would be more detrimental in the end.   
  
"Your seeing Lauren Reed."   
  
Vaughn looked at him as though he'd grown another head, "we've gone out a few times, how -"  
  
"You might have left the CIA Vaughn, but your not really gone," Dixon stopped him. In truth he couldn't even begin to pretend how he could even look at another woman, never mind date one. Diane had been gone for a little over a year, and while he had Robin and Steven to keep him preoccupied outside of work, the thought of being with another woman, in any sense of the word, left a fresh ache in his newly healed heart. "You met her when the NSC investigated Irina Derevko."  
  
"Yes. Weiss suggested I asked her out, said we looked like we'd hit it off or something," he muttered, taking a sip of his coffee. Dixon bit back a half smile, awed at how easily Agent Weiss had completed his part of the arrangement, no matter how badly he'd hated it. "You already know all of this though, so why are you here?"  
  
"You don't know who Lauren Reed really is."  
  
Vaughn's features twisted, almost in amusement, "I know that, we've only been on two -"  
  
"She's not NSC, not really. Her allegiances lie with the Covenant," he explained, knowing that as hard as that news was to break, it wasn't the hardest thing he had to share.  
  
"What? How? When did -"  
  
"The CIA's had suspicions for awhile, information given to the NSC through our channels getting leaked out to the Covenant. We've confirmed it now. We don't know what their end game is Vaughn, they're big though, and they're only going to get stronger."  
  
"What do you want from me?"  
  
"We need you to continue your . . . Relationship with Ms. Reed -"  
  
"Absolutely not. No Dixon, I'm sorry, those people are responsible for what happened to Sydney -"  
  
"Sydney's not dead," he cut him off. Instantly he hated himself for how he let it slip out, especially when Dixon had spent the entire forty-five minute drive to the campus rehearsing this part of his visit.  
  
"What?" Vaughn froze, his features confused and weighed down with pain. "This isn't funny, this isn't the way to get me to do this. I was there, I saw the house on fire, I -"  
  
"I've heard her voice Vaughn, I've seen the surveillance of her meeting with Kendall. She looks different, but it's still her."  
  
"How long have you known?"  
  
"About three weeks."  
  
"How come I wasn't called immediately -"  
  
"Kendall didn't want you to know at all. It took Jack and I to convince him to bring you in. This is big. We had to get you out with Lauren Reed -"  
  
"Weiss knew about this? You essentially set me up with Lauren when you knew Sydney was alive?"  
  
"Sydney was coming to see you Vaughn, she was going to come back to Los Angeles and tell you that she was alive. She was in Los Angeles, but we had to convince her it was too dangerous for you if she came back now. The Covenant thinks she's been reprogrammed to work for them, that she's completely adopted an entirely new personality and life. Kendall had to convince her that she'd do better for you if she wasn't with you, the only way was for her to see you with Lauren."  
  
"She saw us together? Damnit, you *arranged* for her to see us together?"   
  
"It was Kendall's idea -"  
  
"I want to see Kendall."  
  
"Vaughn, I need to know -"  
  
"No. I won't agree to anything until I can see Kendall."  
  
Dixon sighed and looked at the man before him, barely holding the pieces together at the mere mention of Sydney's name. The look was almost convincing, but his facade was thin. After Dixon found out the news, he considered what it would be like to break the news to the former agent. That night he had laid in bed, having checked on Robin and Steven half a dozen times, contemplating what he would do if someone gave him some hope, any hope, that Diane was still alive. Then to be told that she was out there, had seen him with another woman, and had walked way for his sake . . . Dixon couldn't fully comprehend being in Vaughn's shoes, but he could fully imagine his anguish.   
  
"I'll see what I can do."   
  
They met two days later, at the warehouse, the micro storage cage that Vaughn had sworn to himself he'd never see again. That *they'd* never see again, but then she'd died, she'd died and he'd been alone. He'd never go there again, not with her ghost in the shadows, months piling into years wasted because Sloane and SD-6 had invaded the seam of her carefully constructed life.   
  
Vaughn stormed into the area, the other men already waiting as he prepared to unleash what had stormed within him for the last forty-nine and a half hours. "Where is she?" he demanded.  
  
"I'm afraid I can't tell you that Mr. Vaughn, it's classified - " Kendall started.  
  
"Where the hell is she?" he growled, grabbing Kendall by the collar and shoving him roughly against the fence.  
  
Weiss stepped out of the shadow, "Mike, stop!" he insisted, pulling his friend off of their superior. "Just stop. That isn't going to get you anywhere," he reasoned.  
  
"I'm not even privy to knowing her location," Jack answered.  
  
Vaughn glanced over at Sydney's father, "I thought you were deep undercover."  
  
"I was. Needless to say, this was the type of situation that required a quick break," he explained. "My . . . Partner understood."  
  
The younger man's eyes briefly slid shut before he looked back at Jack, "you were working with Irina, this whole time."  
  
"Yes, he was," Kendall replied.  
  
"What the hell is going on here?" Vaughn questioned again, his confusion only growing.  
  
"We believed Agent Bristow was dead, Mr. Vaughn, just as you did. When I received the call that she was in fact alive, we devised a strategy that will hopefully allow us to stop the Covenant and one day bring Sydney home safely."  
  
"One day?" he barked. "One day? I've spent the last nine months thinking she was *dead* and now your telling me I need to wait on the hope that one day, if the Covenant doesn't just decide to kill her, she'll be home?"  
  
"Mr. Vaughn, I'm breaking about half a dozen federal laws by just having this conversation with you -" Kendall began.   
  
"I want to see her."  
  
"You can't Mr. Vaughn, I've already convinced Sydney to stay away from you. You're both in too far to coincidentally be seen together. It would raise questions everywhere! It was common knowledge among your enemies that you two were in love."  
  
"Are in love," Vaughn quietly corrected. "We still are in love."   
  
"Then instead of wasting our energy arguing, why don't you assist us? Which, I might add, was the entire point of contacting you in the first place. Your no longer CIA Mr. Vaughn, you left, the only reason I considered letting Dixon tell you was out of courtesy for what you have gone through."   
  
"What does Lauren have to do with this?" he questioned, growing weary as he sat down in the familiar plastic chair.  
  
Kendall sat down on a carton and began, "in a few days, Lauren's going to be leaving for Zurich. The NSC has been given clearance to hammer out the terms of a pardon for Arvin Sloane -"  
  
"No," he stood up. "No. How can you pardon him?"  
  
"Agent Vaughn," Jack commanded, addressing him as no one else dared to.   
  
"Jack, how can you let them pardon Sloane, after everything -" he halted as the pieces began to fall together. "Irina."  
  
"Yes. Sloane's been cautious, but it's been evident for some time that Sloane was looking to rebuild his organization," Jack answered.  
  
"The Covenant," Vaughn connected. "What does Irina have to do with this?"  
  
"Sloane is under the false impression that Irina's alliances lie with him."  
  
"She's working as a double."  
  
"Essentially," Dixon answered. "We're hoping that the pardon will give Sloane a false sense of security."   
  
"I'm not staying with Lauren," Vaughn answered.  
  
"Agent Vaughn, while the idea doesn't thrill me, you have no choice," Jack replied.  
  
"No. I can't stay with her now. Once I find out about the pardon, which as a former member of the CIA and her new boyfriend, I inevitably will, Sloane would never believe I'd stay with her. She's *negotiating* a pardon for the man who made Sydney's life a hell for over a decade!"  
  
"I'm well aware of the circumstances," Jack reminded him sharply.  
  
"Mr. Vaughn, Sloane, as well as the rest of us, is aware of how difficult it has been for you to move on after Sydney's death. He believes, just as we hope he and Sydney and the rest of the Covenant will, that you've moved on as quickly as possible for your own sanity. Lauren made you laugh, she's probably the first one besides your mother who could make you take a shower and shave in nine months. What it comes down to is that we need you on the outside with Lauren and we need Sydney on the inside if we have any hope of thwarting the Covenant's progress."  
  
"She's out there, without any back up, working with some organization who think she's been brainwashed, and your asking me to sit here and do nothing?"   
  
"That's exactly what I'm asking you to do," Kendall explained. "Soon, however, she'll have back up."  
  
"I don't count anyone the Covenant could send as back up," Vaughn scoffed.  
  
"Have you ever heard of a man named Lazarey?"   
  
"Um . . Yeah, he's a Russian diplomat."  
  
"Yes. The Covenant's out to kill him, he furthers whatever their cause is. Sydney's been tasked to kill him, another step in proving her allegiances are with the Covenant."  
  
Vaughn was immediately on his feet, the fear and horror written on his face, "no. You need to pull her out -"  
  
"We *can't* Mr. Vaughn!" Kendall roared. "There is *no* way to pull her out now without risking her life, and quite frankly your life, which is something Sydney couldn't and wouldn't do."  
  
"So we're going to stand by and allow her to break federal and international laws? When she comes back, she's going to be a *criminal*, she has no choice without our help! You're leaving her to become no better -"  
  
"She's not actually killing anyone Mike," Weiss softly interjected. "We're faking his death. They're only going to *think* he's dead. He's going to be her partner, he's going to be working for us."   
  
"I want her out, I want her back, *now*," he demanded, looking to Jack Bristow for back up.  
  
"While no one would like that more than I would Mr. Vaughn, it's not an option."   
  
"So, Mr. Vaughn," Kendall began as Vaughn looked up at him, fighting back the tears. "Are you in?"   
  
He left the warehouse ten minutes later. The words echoed in his head, his deal to rent out his soul to the CIA in the hopes that Sydney would one day be back with him. Nine months wasted, he thought angrily, wondering when it would ever end for them, for *her*. This wasn't a life, not what she'd been forced to endure, and he couldn't think of a thing she'd done to deserve it. Now he was embarking on a dangerous journey, one that left him with more than a small amount of guilt. As they'd demonstrated, this was all he could do for Sydney Bristow, standing on the outside of her new life and desperately looking in, a position he was intimately familiar with. As horrible as this new avenue of his life would be, the ramifications of which Vaughn hadn't even allowed himself to fully process, this was the only way he could remain by Sydney's side, no matter how far apart they were - and he loved her too much to allow her to do this alone.  
  
The bluffs were abandoned as he got out of the car and approached the boulders. Where they'd spread the ashes nine months ago - he couldn't begin to imagine whose ashes they'd in fact put to sea that day, but he hoped they'd found the peace they obviously hadn't in life. Vaughn climbed to the top, staring out at the water. "Syd," he sighed, struggling to fight back the tears as he dropped his head to rest on his knees. There was no way of knowing when this would end, how or when . . . Sydney could be done before he was, leaving him in the guise of a relationship when she re-entered this life. As the water rocked towards him, he made her a silent promise, no matter where she was; no matter how badly she was hurting, thinking he'd moved on so quickly. There would be an end, he silently swore, and whenever that came, whenever she needed him, it would always be the two of them in the end.  
  
Over a year removed from his solemn ocean-side vow, Vaughn looked up at his wife, feeling the horror sink in. They'd known she was Covenant, he'd known from nearly day one that she was a traitor to the United States government, but he doubted any of them imagined it went that far. There'd been suspicions that in fact the Senator had been in the pocket of the Covenant as well, but no one had hinted that it was for reasons other than financial.   
  
"Your Julia Thorne."  
  
"Yes, Michael," Lauren answered, her patience waiting. "I'm Julia Thorne. The Covenant was able to manipulate Sydney's appearance enough that she was able to adopt my identity. Which in a way is ironic, because I managed to take most of what had been hers as well," she snickered.  
  
"You never had me," he shot back before he quickly silenced.   
  
"Yes," she sighed, almost resigned, perhaps even sad. "I grew to care about you Michael, a great deal. There were moments when I enjoyed what we had, your a good man, a little foolish, but a good man. On some occasions I even wished our marriage was legitimate."  
  
Vaughn licked his lips, "what happened Lauren, why are you doing this now?"  
  
"As opposed to waiting for the CIA to gather enough evidence to take me into custody? I have no intention of seeing the inside of a jail cell. Julian spent more than enough time there for the two of us."  
  
"Why now Lauren?"  
  
"I don't have time to answer your questions Michael, and quite frankly I'm sick of them. You can either drive me to the airport or we can end this here. I'm giving you an option, although I suspect you'd rather be accused of aiding a fugitive then face the thought of leaving your precious Sydney alone to fend for herself."  
  
"Why her? Why Lauren, why do you and the Covenant choose to ruin Sydney's life? What did she ever do to you?"  
  
"Thanks to the two of you, the man *I* love spent two years in jail. In a way I understand your pain Michael, when we began seeing one another - you thought Sydney was dead, and I knew very well Julian might be."  
  
"Why are you leaving now? If you do this now Lauren, your going to look guilty, no matter how innocent you may be -"  
  
"We both know I'm far from innocent. With the crimes I've committed I could be put in a jail cell for the rest of my life without the benefit of a child, thanks to your countries lovely Patriot Laws."  
  
"Don't run Lauren. Turn yourself in, maybe you can negotiate -"  
  
"With what Michael? I have nothing to negotiate with!"   
  
"This doesn't have to end like this."  
  
"Unless you help me, I'm afraid it does. Although I will have to send your mother some flowers, I can't imagine how difficult it will be to learn both your son and husband lost their lives in the line of duty . . . And of course Sydney. Flowers from the widow to the suede-widow. I have no doubt she'd make my life a living hell although. She'd take the high ground, the aggressive one, as always. Unlike you. You folded Michael. For a man, a government employee, you certainly lack a backbone."  
  
"Tell me what you want Lauren, just tell me."  
  
"I'd prefer you dead, but I'd take a ride to the airport."  
  
The sound of the apartment's front door being kicked open shattered through the dim of their conversation. Surprised, they both turned to see the intruder standing at the entrance to their room, a government-issued handgun in hand as Lauren softly sighed, annoyed at the interruption. "What are you -" Vaughn started as his wife cut him off.  
  
"Welcome to the party Agent Bristow, what a nice little surprise," she snickered and looked back at her soon to be ex. "Looks like Sydney just made the decision for both of you. Well," she added, surprisingly cheery at the prospect. "At least you'll die together." 


End file.
